1934 Roadster - Speed, Style, And Vintage Tin

Part of our gearhead life revolves around fantasizing about the perfect garage. Describing the place will inevitably lead to variations from one person to another, yet you can foresee some common threads in the main requirements. It has to be large enough to accommodate more than one car, tools must abound, and the decor should be an homage to the hot rod scene.

Cam Grant's garage fits the bill--and then some. You might expect such a man cave from a long-time player who has built his share of project cars since the '50s and stockpiled a number of desirable parts along the way.

All this and he's not even American. Cam's from the Vancouver, British Columbia, region in Canada. With three quarters of Canada's population residing within 90 miles of the U.S. border, it's no secret that hot rodding has rubbed off on locals. Vancouver has turned into one of the most active cities in the world when it comes to the hot rod/custom hobby.

Cam's interest sprang from hanging out with a good friend, Roger Glassford, who drove a '31 Ford roadster in 1957. "A light went on--and stayed on ever since," tells the hero of our tale. This led to a string of hot rods and '60s American metal, starting with a heavily channeled '30 Model A built in 1958. A bunch of other rides followed: '28 tub, '31 roadster, '34 Vicky, '33 phaeton, '34 Lincoln, and several '32 highboys, one of which was voted Participants' Choice at the '07 Deuce Days in Victoria, B.C., where it competed against 600 other '32s.

Today, Cam's house doesn't stand out in its well-groomed neighborhood, until you open the contiguous two-car garage. It accommodates a 327-powered '50 Chevy woody on genuine American Racings and a '39 Ford convertible similarly motivated--a good start by any standards. However, it's the stand-alone structure in the backyard that usually gets all the oohs and aahs from visitors.

This second garage/shop is decorated with vintage enamel signs and flanked by an old gas station pump, while a rusty '29 roadster pickup sitting a few feet away serves as yard art. "It's not really worth fixing, but it makes me smile when I walk out to my shop," Cam concedes. "It reminds me of the stuff you could find in the '50s and '60s."

Moving inside the wooden structure, your eyes are drawn to hundreds of items of automobilia collected over the past 50 years. This somewhat random mix includes a bit of everything, from gennie '32 grille shells and factory '30s body panels to more tin signs and antique California license plates. Cam often digs for parts in unusual places: "The various instrument panels came mostly from marine salvage outlets. The majority are Stewart Warners, with the exception of the original '32 Auburn panel I purchased last year in a store in Redding, California, for 50 bucks. Incidentally, I saw one for sale for $2,800 the day before, at Bakersfield's California Hot Rod Reunion." A series of valve covers neatly dresses one of the walls, too. "I started picking them up at swap meets when I couldn't find anything I needed; I looked for models under $15 and found quite a few."

Save for the upholstery, Cam prefers tackling all aspects of a build on his own, including chassis construction, bodywork, and paint. He uses only a handful of store-bought products and enjoys crafting brackets, mounts, and so on. Don't expect any high-end equipment here, though; he works with basic tools, grinders, drills, and a good TIG welder. Since his vehicles don't visit other shops, he's gathered a pile of rejected "prototype" pieces in a corner. That has to make Cam a real hot rodder.

And then there are Cam's cars. He pulled a '28 tub out of a garbage dump in the city of Vernon, B.C., in 1961 while he was still in high school. Over the years, our man collected and upgraded a variety of components, but the phaeton sat mostly forlorn until 1999. That's when it received a '32 frame, a '41 dropped axle, a cleverly dressed Chevy LT1 V8, Buick drums all around, and a Culver City Halibrand quick-change. Cam even made the DuVall-style windshield.

Cam's black '32 three-window has an interesting history, too, having likely been built as a hot rod in California during the '50s. "I got the coupe about 10 years ago from an old hot rodder in Idaho," he says. "It's an all-steel car. The body has never been off the frame, and the metal, floor included, is virtually perfect." As the '48-style flathead didn't cut it for highway cruises, the desirable Ford now relies on a 265ci V8 that came from a friend's '56 Chevy wagon. It's a great powerplant to drive to Bonneville and other points south.

Many consider the Titian Red '34 Ford Cam's pièce-de-résistance. Originally crafted in the late '40s in California, it is said to have been built for a movie from that era. The beautifully executed cut-down doors, inspired by luxurious sports cars, are the roadster's signature. The '34 eventually came to Seattle in 1949 before ending up at H&H Motors, a used car lot where Marvin Pickard bought it in 1951. The vehicle went through several owners in the '50s and early '60s, as well as a couple of flathead motors and a Buick nailhead. It even appeared in three small-size magazines a little more than half a century ago. The well-used roadster wound up in a barn in the Seattle area, along with various '32s and '34s, sometime in the '60s.

Cam managed to buy the '34 in 2009 and has been working on it since. He explains, "My goal was to preserve as much of the old paint and parts as possible and still have a car I can drive to B-ville or California with some reliability." His main visible change has been the addition of a DuVall-style windshield from Dave York of B.A. Rod & Custom (Surrey, British Columbia). "My thoughts were if the original builders could have found one, they very likely would have used it, as it enhances the expensive car look." Our resourceful motorhead also chopped the fully functional/foldable top to match the new windshield.

You cannot deny the unique character of this topless find, with its mixture of hot rod and custom traits dating back to its inception in the '40s. Being a '34 model with a strong engine, some will call it a hot rod; yet others might put it in the custom category, due to the door treatment and spare wheel. Cam even made one-off fender skirts to complement the look. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter what you make of the car. It's cool, and it has found the most desirable home. And that's what matters.

What a 13- Year-Old Did Back Then
Long before our youth became mesmerized by information technology and related gizmos, kids had a deep appreciation for automobiles in general and hot rods in particular--even those living in Canada. Cam Grant was no different in 1958. At age 13, before reaching the country's legal driving age, he purchased a derelict and all-original '30 Model A roadster for $75 (Dad drove it home for him). It evolved into an attractive jalopy during the next couple of years, with alterations including a channeled body and a frame seriously kicked both front and aft, thus leaving acceptable interior room. At first, the car ran a '48 Mercury flathead, but that was soon replaced with a more up-to-date (and powerful) '55 Buick nailhead V8.

Still Out There
Yeah, barn-found '32 roadsters still pop up, though only very rarely. Imagine finding two of them. "For years, rumors were out there about these cars," Cam recalls. "But I for one was skeptical that they would be '32s, let alone roadsters." Luckily, one of his friends was a believer, tracked them down in Merritt, B.C., in 2010, and bought them for '70s prices. "For some reason, they weren't what he wanted, so he called me and I immediately got them." Lucky devil. They had been sitting for 30-odd years. One is quite complete and in fairly decent shape, apart from dents along the top of the doors. The other, channeled at some point, had a rougher life. Cam is now putting it together as a full-fendered, unchanneled car with '57 Cadillac power.